


Vaster Than Empires and More Slow

by Camellia Cook (thekurosakiconundrum)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Arguments, F/M, Proper Time Lord Behavior, The Vault (Doctor Who), or lack thereof, twissy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 22:05:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18081782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekurosakiconundrum/pseuds/Camellia%20Cook
Summary: Missy just wants to get laid, but the Doctor foils her plans again... Or does he?





	Vaster Than Empires and More Slow

The Doctor was always on the lookout for a blitz attack as soon as he opened the door to the Vault, but this time he didn’t see it coming. There was no warning because there was no sense of malice, no hostile intent—he’d been relying on that to cue him in on the possibility, and now there was a streak of purple coming at him from the side, too quick for him to react. She still couldn’t get out, of course, the door was too sophisticated for that and Missy knew it, but she also knew that he could always open it, and might imagine that he could be coerced into doing so.

Missy grabbed him by the shoulders and the Doctor had time enough only to preemptively wince, expecting a knee to the solar plexus or groin. It never came, though, and abruptly he found himself with an armful (and a mouthful) of amorous Time Lady, Missy’s body pressed all along his front as she shoved her tongue inside his hanging-open-in-shock mouth.

How had he not recognized her immediately, when she kissed him that first time? Missy kissed like the Master always had, deep and thorough and terribly possessive, familiar enough that his body knew how to respond without prompting from his mind. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back before he quite knew what he was doing, and for a few seconds it was perfect, until reality came crashing back into place, and he knew he had to stop this.

It took a few more seconds for him to actually do it—she felt so good, all hard edges and soft warmth in exactly the right proportion, but eventually he did, shoving her off as gently as he could manage while still firmly dislodging her. He took a couple quick steps back to put some distance between them, and closed the physical part of the Vault door while he was at it.

“Missy…” he began, though he had no idea what to say. This wasn’t usually a problem for him, champion talker that he was, but all he could think of to say was: “What?”

Oh, yes, Doctor, very eloquent. Way to seem unaffected.

She glared at him, and ah, there it was, the hostility he hadn’t sensed a moment ago. Hands on her hips, she explained, “You are neglecting the needs of your prisoner. Maybe you could stand years and years of enforced celibacy, but I can’t, and you’ve got to do something about it.”

He blinked at her, taken aback. Normally, he could (perhaps) ignore such a request, but the way she put it, reminding him of the responsibilities that came with their unequal status…

She continued, “You’ve got three choices: You’re either going to let me out of here so I can find someone to shag me senseless, find someone to do it and bring them to me, or you’re going to do it yourself. You’d be afraid to inflict me on anyone else, so why don’t you just _take off your clothes.”_

Ordinarily, the Doctor was very quick and prided himself on his adaptability. However, this ability was currently failing him utterly. He found all this somewhat shocking—being English for so very long seems to have had its effect. Struck speechless, he could only repeat, “ _What?_ ”

She took a step towards him, and he took a step back. She took another and so did he, the two of them repeating the process until the Doctor found himself with his back to a wall. Stupid, he was being so stupid, but he couldn’t seem to think while Missy was advancing on him like a hungry predator and unbuttoning her shirt at the same time.

This was the problem with denial—you ignored something as long as you could, and that was all well and good, but then all of a sudden it was right in front of you and you couldn’t ignore it anymore and you were left totally unprepared. He wanted her, wanted her so badly that he had to press his hands flat to the wall to keep from reaching for her, and until now, he hadn’t realized. There was a phrase he heard recently that described this situation—what was it? Oh, right: Congratulations, Doctor, you’ve played yourself.

She stepped right up to him, jacket undone and shirt half-open, and poked him in the chest with each word as she hissed, “ _I. Need. Sex._ ”

“Uh,” the Doctor replied, eyes darting around frantically, “Uh, Missy, I…”

“You what?” she snapped, “You forced the longest dry spell in my whole lives upon me? Yes, you did. Now fix it.”

“What, really? It’s only been fifty years,” the Doctor asked, because he just couldn’t help himself.

“Only fifty years? _Only fifty years?”_

Missy really was looking a bit wild around the eyes as she went on, “Doctor. Theta. My dear, sweet, prudish idiot. I think you fail to appreciate just how much the people of the universe enjoy a quality black-hat, dyed-in-the-wool Bad Man. Or woman, as the case may be. Charm, confidence, and an obvious lack of morals are incredibly reliable as seduction tactics. It’s just a fact—it’s human nature, especially, and the nature of most sentient beings in general to want to play with fire, and I assure you, Doctor, that’s _exactly_ what I am. In all my travels, the one thing I have never wanted for is a steady supply of willing bedmates. Even when I had those awful sideburns.”

“People are attracted to power, and you’ve always flaunted yours. But just because they offer themselves, that doesn’t mean you’re supposed to take them up on it and go to bed with them!” The Doctor protested, offended by the very idea.

“Oh, I haven’t gone to bed with all of them. I mean, there’s all sorts of couches and divans in the world, and I do confess that I’ve always found that doing it on the floor, while uncomfortable, has a certain appeal. Up against my TARDIS console and, of course, walls, not to mention—“

“Shut up,” the Doctor growled, his voice low and quiet with sudden anger. The thought of of Missy or previous Masters going about taking advantage of all the humans and other life forms that fell under her sway was appalling. Yes, that was it. Disgustingly bad form—didn’t she have any dignity as a Time Lord?

“All the more specialized pieces of equipment designed for that sort of purpose, or commonly appropriated for it, things you can tie people to—I’ve got whole rooms, you know, aboard my TARDIS,” Missy continued blithely, as if she hadn’t heard him, though he knew she had. “All kinds of fun stuff in there—that’s the thing about the ones who like men like me, they’re disappointed if you don’t dominate them at least a little—“

“I said, shut up,” the Doctor repeated, stepping up to meet Missy, drawing himself up to his full height and glaring her down. His head was full of images now, of Missy’s faceless conquests, and he hated it. He imagined them, all the men and women and everybody else, scattered across space and time, having known her, known her touch, known what if felt like inside her. Unacceptable, it was absolutely unacceptable. That knowledge wasn’t for them, _she_ wasn’t for them. “Stop. Talking.”

She wasn’t intimidated. She just smiled, and there were a thousand wicked promises in the curl of her lips. Her eyes dropped to his mouth and lingered there long enough to make sure he noticed—like he could ever have missed it—before she looked back up at him through heavy, mascaraed lashes and asked innocently, “Jealous?”

“Of course not!” he snapped. He knew it was a lie the second it was out of his mouth.

She did, too, he was sure. “Of them? Or of me, indulging myself with all my little pets while you play the lofty Time-Lord-above-all-that-fleshy-nonsense with yours? Or both?”

“Certainly not,” he protested, pulling his dignity and code of ethics around himself like a shield. “I would never sleep with my companions! They get awestruck by what I can show them; it’s natural, but it would be wrong for me to take advantage, and I’m sad you can’t see that.”

She rolled her eyes at him and said, “Oh, yes, it would be so terrible for them to get to touch the man they, for some time-forsaken reason, admire. It’s not my problem that you get off on feeling like a martyr more than on actually getting off.”

“Some of us are capable of putting principle before pleasure, Missy,” the Doctor said sternly. This was the ticket, draw her into a discussion, distract her from her original goal. It wouldn’t work forever, but stalling for time was among his top skills for a reason—it gave him time to think. This only worked when he actually could think, but surely he’d get the hang of it again in a minute. “We don’t all go around giving in to our every whim.”

“Hah, so you are tempted, then, by all those pretty young things that ride around with you. I knew it. I remember the way you looked at that Scottish boy, way back when. I saw you looking whenever your Miss Grant had to bend in those short, short skirts that were the fashion then. I never caught that beige one of you ogling your companions, though I could practically smell how much they liked it when you took off your jumper and went out in your shirtsleeves. The one after him, though, with the awful coat, really admired Miss Brown’s hard-to-miss tits. And then, of course, there was Miss Tyler—“

“Enough,” the Doctor snapped. He never wanted to discuss Rose with Missy. Not now, not ever. He’d let her have her laugh at his expense to prevent it, so he admitted, “Yes, fine, I’m not made of stone. I have desires, too, but—“

“But you needlessly deny yourself their satisfaction because it hurts you, so therefore it must be good. You really are the world’s most boring masochist, aren’t you? Live a little, let someone _really_ hurt you.”

“Someone like you?” The Doctor cursed himself as soon as he says it. He was meant to be leading her away from her original topic, what was he doing? It was either active self-sabotage or he had been thrown entirely off balance by Missy calling him out like that. How could someone who sometimes seemed to not know him at all know him so well?

“ _Yes,_ ” she replied, with relish. “I’m very good at it.”

The Doctor swallowed hard. He remembered.

“Anyway, this is all beside the point. So, you’re a little jealous of me because I get to have my humans and eat them too, but the real question is whether you’re jealous of them.”

“I’m not jealous, I just don’t think it’s appropriate. Really, Missy, I can’t believe even you would…”

“What, lower myself? Aren’t you the one who’s always giving me a hard time for thinking I’m better than them? You hypocrite.”

“You’re not better than them, but you’re better than that.”

“ _Ugh,_ Doctor. You sound like the sort of stuffy old fools that told us all the reasons we ought not use our bodies for anything but containers for our minds back on Gallifrey! What _happened_ to you?”

“I grew up,” The Doctor replied flatly.

“No,” Missy said, giving him truly disgusted look. “You got old. You used to be glorious, Thete. You used to insatiable, not just for sex but for _everything._ Then you got old and you forgot what it’s like to be alive.”

“I’m not the one who’s spent half her time being dead!” he snaps, stung by the look on her face.

“And maybe if you had, if you’d had to cling to life the way I have, if you knew what it’s really like to be without a body, you wouldn’t try to emulate that miserable form of existence like a good little Time Lord!”

She was genuinely angry, he realized, genuinely upset by the ways he’d changed. Good, he wanted to say, it served her right, but the thought that he was more like the teachers they’d scorned than the lad called Theta Sigma was not one he liked much.

He shouldn’t escalate this; it was dangerous and it was pointless. But Goddesses, she made him angry. “I might not be enjoying my life much right now, but that’s because I’m stuck here keeping an eye on you!”

“And who asked you to do that?” she spat, eyes narrowed, lips curled with her brittle, haughty pride. “Who made me your cross to bear?”

“You did!”

“No, you did! I never asked to be your prisoner, your project, another one of your thousand burdens,” she snarled, getting right in his face. “You call me self-indulgent for having a little fun, but you’re the one who’s trapped yourself here, beating your head against a lost cause for no other reason than than the indulgence of your penchant for self-sacrifice. Is this your penance, Doctor? Your absolution? You think devoting a few hundred years to trying and failing to save your old friend is going to make up for the things you’ve done?”

“You aren’t a lost cause, Missy,” he said, his anger melting away, replaced by sadness, and by guilt. “And you are my responsibility, for better or worse. You’re like this because of me, at least in part.”

She reeled, staring up at him incredulously. “You self-centered, egotistical prick! I’m me because of me, and because of what the Time Lords did to me. You think it’s your fault that I went mad? You think it’s your fault that I burned through eleven regenerations in less than a hundred years and had to scrounge bodies like some kind of fucking parasite, losing pieces of myself as I went? Well, I’ve got news for you, _Doctor_ —the universe doesn’t revolve around you. _I_ don’t revolve around you. You’re right that I didn’t care if I lived or died after you left, but that and everything that came after is my problem, not yours! My soul isn’t yours to save! Maybe it was, once, but you gave up your claim on it a long time ago.”

“I shouldn’t have left you the way I did. I was stupid and cruel,” he said softly, reaching for her.

She jerked away, half turning so that she didn’t meet his eyes as she replied, “Yes, you were, and no, you shouldn’t have. But no amount of sacrifice is going to fix that. What’s done is done, even for Time Lords. Just like Logopolis and the part of the universe that burned with it, just like what I did to poor Lucy Saxon—just like every life I’ve ever taken and every mind I’ve ever broken, there’s no taking it back.”

She turned back, her eyes meeting his again, ancient and burdened with an impossible weight. “No doctor can heal all wounds. The truth of life is that sometimes there’s no fixing what you break.”

He reached for her again, and this time she let him. He cupped her cheek as he whispered, “What else is there to do but try?”

She laughed brokenly, eyes shining. “I don’t fucking know, sit in this Vault until we die, I guess. Get drunk, maybe. Retire to the Eye of Orion and try not to fuck things up any worse. Or go mad, do whatever we want, and forget to care about any of it. That would be nice, right about now.”

“I can’t, Missy. I just can’t. I have to try.”

“I know,” she sighed. She turned her face to press into his hand, and her lips were soft and warm against his palm as she murmured again, “I know.”

“You could try with me?”

“I wouldn’t even know how to begin. I wouldn’t even know how to want to begin.”

“It’s easy. Well, not easy, but it’s not complicated. You help where you can, that’s all.”

“Not today. Maybe someday, maybe never, but not today.”

“All right.”

He pulled her in closer, held her to him, and miracle of miracles, she let him. It was so different from their earlier embrace; she still felt soft and warm and small against him, but now all her brittle, manic tension had drained away. It wouldn’t last for long, of course, but it was nice while it did.

After a little while, she muttered against his chest, “This didn’t turn out like I planned.”

He huffed out half a laugh, and said, “It never does, does it?”

“No. You’re a bastard, always ruining my plans.”

“Don’t count this one out quite yet,” he said, shrugging, “The night is young. Some food first, though, I think. One always needs food after a bit of shouting.”

She pulled back, then, to shoot him a scathing, incredulous look, one eyebrow cocked as if to say, “ _Seriously?”_

“Why not? I wasn’t going to say no, anyway, I’m pretty sure. It might not beat going mad, but it’s definitely a better distraction than getting drunk.”

With a tired groan, she cuddled against him again, talking into his shoulder. “I was trying to badger you into satisfying me, not aiming for a hug and a pity fuck.”

“It’s not pity, Missy, I—“

“Don’t.”

“All right. Not today.”


End file.
